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I was suddenly grateful that Kevin had chosen a suite on the third floor.
I staggered to my feet, fighting the pounding waves of dizziness and nausea that washed over me like foamy surf. There was nothing in the room I could use to break the window.
Except me.
There was no guarantee I was going to survive this, anyway. If I wasn’t able to control my fall onto the hotel awning below, I could break my neck or any assortment of limbs. Or maybe whatever that airborne toxin was I’d ingested would kill me within seconds, no matter how much fresh air I managed to belatedly suck into my lungs.
So I figured I might as well take the odds.
I tightened my fists and pumped my legs. If I didn’t build up enough momentum to propel my body through the window, I’d either bounce off the glass or die while being cut to shreds.
I focused on this one task: crashing through this window. I tried not to think about Kevin, even though most of me wanted to stay here and spend my final moments holding his hand.
I remember very little about the next few seconds: the rush of breaking glass, a dozen slashes across my forearms, the sensation of the world tilted on its axis…
And then nothing.
CHAPTER 6
THE DARK WAS an impossibly vast ocean, and I was completely lost in it.
Then, suddenly: sounds. Muffled at first, like hearing someone speak underwater. It was a voice in a language other than my own, but that I could sort of understand. German. I knew enough to understand that they were talking about me.
Where was I? It was not entirely clear. My mind felt disconnected from my body, tethered in the most tenuous of ways. One jolt, and I feared that tether could easily slip away, flinging me out into the dark ocean forever, with no hope of rescue.
I couldn’t feel my hands, so there was nothing to cling to. Nothing except the German words spoken around me, which my brain automatically translated for me: “I don’t know why we’re bothering to hurry. She’ll likely be dead before we reach the hospital.”
“You don’t know that.”
Hurry.This meant that my body was being transported in an ambulance. How could I not know that? Was my link to my physical self so weak that I couldn’t tell if I was badly hurt, or even feel the bumps in the road, or hear the sirens?
“This one is not like the others. She didn’t get as much gift. They found her outside, on the hotel’s awning!”
Good to know my desperate self-defenestration had gone according to plan. But what was this about a “gift”? Was I mistranslating that word?
“With a gift like this, I don’t think she stands much of a chance.”
Finally, I remembered that “gift” was German for poison.
“But she’s a large woman. Looks strong.”
Großis the German word he used, which could mean large or heavy… or simply tall. I’m too terrified to be properly insulted.
“Doesn’t matter. I don’t think she can survive. Look what happened to the others at the Adlon. I hear the target was a politician from—”
“Why don’t you focus on your job and save the gossip for the media?”
No, no… conjecture away, my pessimistic friend! The more you speculate, the more I can try to understand what’s happening to me. And please, please, please say something about my husband! Is Kevin here in this same ambulance with me?
If not, then I was a widow, dying in a foreign country. The people who were conveying my body to medical treatment didn’t think I would likely survive.
“Look! She’s convulsing!”
I am?
“Quick! Give her some midazolam!”
No! Donotgive me a sedative that will slow my brain activity! I have a tenuous connection to my body as it is, and I’m terrified that drugs will sever it completely. Please, stop!
